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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26961016">Sir.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistamang/pseuds/Mistamang'>Mistamang</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, First Dates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:35:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26961016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistamang/pseuds/Mistamang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 1 Rhythm of War spoilers!<br/>We got virtually nothing of Kaladin and Lyn's relationship so I wrote their first date.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kaladin/Lyn (Stormlight Archive)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sir.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I'm sorry?" Kaladin ask, perplexed.</p><p>"Do you want to go out on a date with me, sir?" Lyn repeated for him, corner of her lips curling up slightly at the look on Kaladin's face.</p><p>"Oh." Kaladin's brows creased, not entirely sure how to think.</p><p>"Kaladin!" Syl spun around his head, frantic in her excitement. "Ohh! This is it! This is your chance, Kaladin! Yes!- Say yes!"</p><p>Syl had become so certain that dating was the answer to all of Kaladin's problems somehow, she had refused to let the topic drop for months despite his wishes.</p><p>Lyn was nice enough, he supposed. She was smart and confident, she had an air of stubbornness that Kaladin had a fondness for.</p><p>He liked Lyn, but since she'd joined bridge four, he saw her as just another one of his men. Perhaps that was wrong of him? he wasn't entirely sure.</p><p>Regardless, he couldn't just say no to her, he'd not only be hurting Lyn, but Syl as well. Her advice was important to him. There was no harm in going on one date, for Sly's sake.</p><p>"Uh, yes that- I'd like that."</p><p>"Great! 'You free tonight?"</p><p>"I… sure?" Not exactly, but when was he ever?  he supposed his duties as high marshal could wait one night.</p><p>-</p><p>Kaladin had always felt out of place in taverns, -actually, Kaladin felt out of place just about anywhere, regardless- being stuffed in a dimly lit, cramped space, surrounded by too much noise and swarms of people drunk on too much liquor had never been the kind of thing Kaladin had wanted to seek out.</p><p>Kaladin frowned, looking down at his hands, still holding a glass of something only mildly intoxicating on the table in front of him. Across from Kaladin and his still full glass, sat Lyn, who, like Kaladin, hadn't bothered to change out of her military uniform for their "date".</p><p>"Sorry." Lyn finally spoke up over the noise of the tavern, cutting the thick air that was growing between her and Kaladin.</p><p>He looked up from his glass towards Lyn, confusion further creasing his already creased brow. "What for?"</p><p>"Are you kidding?" Lyn huffed out an exasperated laugh "This was such a terrible idea." She could no longer hold eye contact with Kaladin's concerned gaze, choosing instead to look at her own glass in front of her. She managed to still hold a smile, though it had a bitterness to it that made kaladin wince.</p><p>"I'm sorry." Kaladin spoke, unsure what else he was supposed to say. He wasn't good at this, he wasn't good with people.</p><p>"No- don't apologize. This is not your fault, it's mine. I thought that sharing a drink would be an opportunity for us to get to know eachother but I should know by now that you're not the talking type. I screwed up." Lyn spoke fast, like she'd been waiting to get this off her chest since the moment they sat down.</p><p>Kaladin had never seen Lyn look this uncharacteristically uncomfortable in a situation before. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.</p><p>"You're a busy man, I've been wasting your time by dragging you here. Again, I'm sorry, sir." She made to stand from her seat in front of Kaladin, nodding briskly, clearly ready to leave as quick as possible, but Kaladin managed to reach for her free hand before she could turn to bolt.</p><p>He didn't touch her hand, but his intent was clear enough that it made Lyn stop and finally look towards Kaladin.</p><p>"Hold on, Lyn." He spoke. "Come with me."</p><p>Lyn was silent, the roar of the crowded tavern filled her silence but it wasn't enough to break the tension it created. Kaladin didn't move as he waited for her thoughts to process.</p><p>"... Okay."</p><p>-</p><p>Kaladin and Lyn left the tavern situated in the central marketplace of Urithiru and moved between the bustling crowds of people.</p><p>Once outside of the tower and out of the crowds, Kaladin led Lyn towards the oathgate.</p><p>"Kaladin- hold on!" Lyn spoke out from behind Kaladin as he kept moving forward "Where are we going?" </p><p>Kaladin stopped to look back at Lyn, shuffling on both his feet, eager to keep moving. "Do you have stormlight?"</p><p>"Yes?" She was hoping for an answer to her question but instead he once again reached out this time taking her by her free hand and continued stalking towards the oathgate.</p><p>Lyn suppressed the flutter that built in her stomach in response to the rough hand that now held hers, and followed her High Marshal.</p><p>-</p><p>Kaladin and Lyn walked off of the oathgate platform, onto the crem covered ground of the Shattered Plains.</p><p>Kaladin strided forward, hands now tucked behind his straight back, looking up at the stars above.</p><p>He glowed softly with stormlight, only noticeable because of the lack of light out here on the empty plains at this time of night.</p><p>"Are you going to tell me what we're doing out here now, or are you going to just keep dragging me around in the dark?" Lyn said to Kaladin, who still stood with his back turned away from her.</p><p>Kaladin finally turned to Lyn, eyes still glowing blue from summoning Syl to work the Oathgate.</p><p>He lashed himself up slightly so he just barely hovered off the ground and gave Lyn a smirk. "Wanna race?" </p><p>"Wha?-"</p><p>Kaladin didn't hear much more than that, as he had lashed himself several times upwards towards the stars.</p><p>He closed his eyes, basking in the cold wind of the Shattered Plains' night air. It would've been unbearable if not for the warmth of stormlight thrumming within him.</p><p>Beside him, Syl laughed and spun like a glowing blue ribbon around Kaladin, along with a dozen or so other windspren that followed.</p><p>He slowed finally as the air got thinner, looking below him to see Lyn, illuminating the air with a burst of her own stormlight as she flew upwards, towards him.</p><p>He could see the life in her eyes and the genuine smile that she gave to him from here. Several wind spren of her own followed close by. She knew what it was like to be free with the wind. She could control the skies, much like he did.</p><p>He smiled back.</p><p>Then he dropped, reorienting himself so he pointed straight down. Flying straight past Lyn, who had been caught off guard for a moment before she too, reoriented herself to follow suit.</p><p>He fell from the sky, guiding himself with careful lashings towards a chasm opening before lashing forward so once he flew into the chasm he could followed it's trail.</p><p>Lyn came in beside him, he found that his smile hadn't left his face since he'd fallen, he found that he didn't mind.</p><p>The glow of their stormlight illuminated the Plants and vines that covered the deep chasm walls just above where the Highstorm left it's watermark. Life spren, like floating specks of green light, bobbed happily near the plants, giving the chasm it's very own constellation of stars to marvel at.</p><p>"It's beautiful!" Lyn shouted over the wind whipping in their ears.</p><p>"It is." Kaladin replied, quieter, more to himself.</p><p>Syl flew in front of them, leaving a trail of blue glow behind her, she moved not unlike how a sky eel would fly overhead.</p><p>He nodded his head to Lyn, signaling that he wanted her to follow him as he began to make his way out of the chasm. She nodded in turn.</p><p>As he broke out, he immediately noticed the tower jutting out above the rest of the plains in the distance where he saved Dalinar and his army a year earlier.</p><p>It had felt like a lifetime ago, he supposed it had been, in a sense. He's lived through so many different lives, and yet none of them left Kaladin feeling like he was alive at all.</p><p>Why did he always feel so empty, why couldn't he escape it?</p><p>Kaladin flew to the tower, pulled by it's memory, landing on it's tip and walking to the edge to sit and watch over the intricate expanse of the Shattered Plains, illuminated by the dim light of the second moon.</p><p>Lyn came after Kaladin a moment later and sat down on the ledge beside him. They sat like that for a long moment, comfortable.</p><p>He watched Syl as she flew ahead of them, chasing the windspren and dancing with the winds.</p><p>"Sorry, this probably wasn't the most conventional date you've ever been on." Kaladin spoke finally, his voice was quiet from lack of use and he quickly cleared his throat before continuing. "I just… needed to get out."</p><p>Lyn laughed at Kaladin's timid words, which only made him feel more self-conscious for saying them.</p><p>"Please, I should be the one apologizing for trying to be conventional in the first place." She nudged his shoulder. "Conventionalism doesn't really fit us, does it?"</p><p>Kaladin huffed out a small laugh, staring down at his hands in his lap. "Suppose not…"</p><p>Lyn seemed to be transfixed by something he couldn't see out there. She smiled again, though it was weaker this time. "I remember being so obsessed with these Plains back at the warcamps." She laughed to herself. "I remember watching armies of the different highlords marching out and fighting to the death and dreaming that I'd join them one day."</p><p>"It wasn't as magical as you make it sound." Kaladin felt a sickness in his stomach at the sudden flash of memories her words had brought.</p><p>The old man who took the time to speak to Kaladin on that very first bridge run and then left Kaladin behind with a bloodied corpse and a pair of leather sandals. That nameless, terrified boy, who looked so shockingly like Tien, and the blood that dripped onto the boy's lifeless eye and ran down his cheek like a stream of red tears. The countless other faces and names who all had lives of their own at one point, now lay dead and forgotten at the bottom of the chasms.</p><p>"I know that now, but I wanted so badly to be someone, to make some sort of difference to the world. It feels childish now, to think that those skirmishes on the shattered plains meant something."</p><p>"I understand." He didn't need to look in Lyn's direction to feel her confused stare burn into the side of his face.</p><p>"While I was in Amaram's army, I dreamed of coming to the Shattered Plains. It gave me purpose, knowing that there was a place with something worth fighting for out there, living just out of my reach, and I just needed to push harder to finally grasp it."</p><p>And see where that got you. What was there left to keep reaching for? There was no honor left, there hadn't been for centuries.</p><p>Kaladin huffed, in a poor attempt at a laugh "a place other than the Tranquiline Halls, I suppose."</p><p>Silence blanketed the two for a long moment, it wasn't the comfortable silence like before, it felt strained. Lyn clearly wanted to say something but couldn't find the proper words for it.</p><p>"Sir, I-I'm sor-"</p><p>"Please." Kaladin interrupted her immediately, knowing what was coming. He didn't need any more pitying stares and empathetic words than what he already got.</p><p>"My past is my past, Lyn," He finally looked her in the eyes. Storms, she did look beautiful… that deep, earnest look in her eyes, it stripped Kaladin bare and exposed parts of him he was never ready to show.</p><p>He huffed out another weak laugh, breaking eye contact too soon, he just wasn't strong enough to leave himself opened, not for long. </p><p>"and please, stop calling me sir." He smiled. "We're on a date."</p><p>Lyn laughed, maybe a little too hard for it to be entirely natural. "Sorry-! Sorry, Kaladin. I'm just- ah... this sort of thing isn't really my strong suit, I can't lie." Her smile was sincere and so full of warmth and Kaladin's smile became a little more real in turn.</p><p>"Me neither."</p>
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